


Not Today

by foxbm



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, But you'll be alright, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-23 13:41:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7465599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxbm/pseuds/foxbm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke and Lexa have a talk about love, five years after going their separate ways from another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was listening to some music, the song 'Not Today' by Imagine Dragons, and I was feeling angsty and thinking about stuff too deeply. 
> 
> I don't know if this will be a one shot or if I'll continue it to something a bit more. You guys can let me know what you want in the comments.

"I don't believe in it.”

Lexa put her half-empty coffee cup down and blew a strand of hair away from her face. 

Clarke and her had been at it for hours, inside an old Spanish corner store, which arguably served the best and cheapest coffee in town. The two old lovers, after several run ins with one another through mutual friends and small get togethers, had finally agreed to catch up on the last five years of their lives, away from each other. 

After the second cup of coffee and a shared pineapple empanada, the two were on the intimate subject dealing with matters of the heart. 

"What? Love?” Clarke asked confused, scrunching the thin napkin in her hand. 

Lexa nodded and crossed her arms, feeling the material of her leather jacket tighten around her shoulders. 

"That is the most stupidest thing I've heard. Ever.” Clarke sighed, throwing the scrunched napkin in her hands across the table, landing it weakly on Lexa’s lap. 

Lexa picked up the napkin from her lap and threw it back at the blonde across from her, playfully. 

"Stupid or not. I don't believe in it. Well, not entirely. I'm hesitant. Reluctant. At the very least, I'm cautious.” 

Clarke wasn’t satisfied with such a vague answer. It bugged her. Annoyed her more then it should have. She struggled to understand why the most romantic woman she ever knew had made such a contradicting and controversial statement. It was out of character. It felt wrong, the words replaying in her mind. It almost felt like the moon was falling out of love with the sun. Like the ocean tide no longer had the desire to kiss the shore. Like spring without the blossoming of cherry trees. Like all the galaxies stopped fighting and let themselves be consumed by black holes, desperate to no longer exist in this universe. Simply because, the most romantic woman in the world no longer believed in the oldest magic, no longer believed in the beauty that was, that could be love. 

"But why? Who hurt you so badly that you've closed yourself to love?” Clarke asked again, ignoring the nervous way Lexa cradled her half empty cup in her hands. 

"Why does someone always have to be hurt by someone else to be closed off to love?” Lexa sighed, as if it was the hundredth time she had this conversation. 

"Because. Why else would somebody deny themselves one of the greatest pleasures in life unless they'd been hurt by it?"

"No one hurt me." 

"It makes me angry. This view of yours. I don't like it.” Clarke huffed, leaning back into her wooden chair, unsatisfied with the answers she was getting. 

"You used to be obsessed about love, the idea of soulmates, destined lovers, at the sappy stuff poets go on about. You used to be 'true love's' champion. Now you are a pessimist.” Clarke mumbles while Lexa looked into her cup, probably wanting to escape. 

Clarke couldn’t blame her. It was a heavy conversation they were having. Not usually one held between ex-lovers. However, here they were and Clarke couldn’t drop it for some reason. 

She wanted an answer. 

A clear answer. 

A reason. 

Five years ago, she and Lexa went their separate ways in search of something better than what they were doing to one another. She let Lexa go and leave her life, in hopes of something better. In hopes that she would find and get what she couldn’t give her. She broke her own her heart to ensure the Lexa’s would be okay. Would be damage free. Now she was worried she’d been wrong. Maybe she’d made the wrong decision. Maybe they had both did more harm than good when they left each other. 

"Huh. I guess so. Years ago.” Lexa breaks the silence after letting Clarke’s previous words settle in. 

Clarke can see Lexa struggle to grasp the memories of the person she used to be. As if she were fighting them off and sending them away, back to the deep, dark places you kept things you didn’t want to get out. 

"Someone broke you.” Clarke adds, not tiptoeing around. 

"I assure you, I'm crack free.” Lexa chuckled, smug smirk on her face for just half a second, before disappearing again. 

"Was it me?” Clarke asks.

"What?"

"Was I the one who broke you?" 

"You and I were a long time ago."

"Answer the question."

"No. It wasn't you, Clarke. Conscience cleared?" 

"I'm not trying to clear my conscience."

"Then why do you care so much?” Lexa asks, letting a hint of frustration penetrate into her words. 

She didn’t understand why Clarke cared so much. She didn’t know why her ceasing to believe in love and being hesitant to ever try something similar to it again was such a big deal to the blonde. It wasn’t a big deal to her. Well, most of the time. It wasn’t a big deal.   
Lexa was getting used to it. The idea of never loving again. She was getting used to the loneliness and emptiness she felt heavily on her chest each morning she woke up. It hurt. To live this way. But it was safe and would be less painful. She was saving herself. She had to. She wouldn’t survive another devastation. 

"You and I loved each other once. It was a great love. And it ended and God knows I was broken from it. It'd make sense if maybe, you were a little too..."

"Great love....I never knew you could have such a romantic way with words.” 

Clarke rolled her eyes and fidgeted in her seat. The two stared at one another for a while before it became too much, forcing the the two to look out the window beside them. 

"What was it like for you? After we broke up, how did you, how did you manage?” Clarke asks after a moment of quiet. 

Lexa took a deep breath. She thought the conversation was over, but Clarke was relentless. She always had been. 

"You really want to know?” 

Clarke nods repeatedly and leans in closer on the table, moving their coffee cups to the side.  

"I, uh, I left.” Lexa starts off quietly, avoiding Clarke’s gaze and settling on the passing cars outside the window. 

"I disappeared for a couple of years. Traveled around some. Tried to escape every memory and place where I was reminded of you. Didn't work well. Everywhere, I went, all the places, different countries, cities, you were always there. No matter how hard I tried to escape the memory of who you and I used to be, I'd find myself looking for you in the crowd. I'd find myself wishing you were beside me, holding my hand, whispering facts about random things, trying to get me to laugh, assuring me love was real, that you and I were real."

"You were everywhere. I couldn't escape you. Then one night, I was walking home from the bar. I was a little drunk. I was passing up the church steps a block down from my loft and I saw her. And for a moment, for a moment it was just her. And I realized you were right. I would love again.” 

Lexa looks away from the cars outside, looking to see Clarke’s reaction at the last words she spoken. When they broke up, Clarke had repeated it numerous times. She wanted Lexa to love again. She promised the girl would love again. Even if she said it unconvincingly through choked sobs and tight, farewell embraces. 

"She....?” Clarke nearly whispers, trying to tread carefully. 

She heard stories from their friends. Heard about Lexa’s new life in another country. Heard about the new woman. The lovely woman, the gorgeous woman who made Lexa fall in love with her and kept her away from her home, her friends, her family, in another country, another life, almost forgotten. 

"I proposed to her on the steps.” Lexa gave a sad smile, as if she was replaying a dozen memories in her head. 

"Of course, you did. You're just a big romantic sap filled with romantic declarations no one can deny. Even if you do.” Clarke laughed, trying to lighten the mood, trying to make the conversation easier.   

"I had to ask her a couple more times after that night. She said yes the ninth time. I remember it so vividly. We were watching the tourists take pictures and I was watching her watch them. It was evening and the sun was setting and you know how I hate sunsets, but not that day. She was beautiful. The sunset was beautiful. The tourists, the city, it was all beautiful. So, I asked her because I was madly in love and I couldn't not spend the rest of my life proving that to her.”

Clarke ignored the tear escape from the corner of her eye as she watched Lexa heartbreakingly tell her about proposing and loving another woman. Not because she was jealous or angry or envious. But because this woman was no longer here. And Lexa no longer believed in love. 

"She said yes. And we had two wonderful, amazing years together. Sometimes, I wonder if I'll ever get to be as happy again. If I’ll ever be as happy as I was during those two years I had with her.” 

There were no tears from Lexa. Instead just the pained expression she seemed to be wearing permanently these days. It was so much worse. 

"Maybe, you're right. Maybe I am broken. I just can't love like that again. If anything were to happen, I wouldn't recover. Not again.” Lexa goes on before stopping, her voice seeming a bit weaker. 

"I can't imagine….” Clarke finds herself saying as she watches Lexa fight to keep it together. 

She wants to tell Lexa they can stop talking about it. They can discuss other things. Happier things, but from what she’s heard, in the year since Lexa’s come back, not once has she talked about the woman she loved and lost. Not once has her name been mentioned or discussed. Clarke wonders how long and how much it hurts to keep all the memories, all the hopes, the dreams, Lexa and her wife had shared, how much it must hurt to keep it all inside. 

"I hope you never do.” Lexa says, as if she could read Clarke’s thoughts. 

Another ten minutes of silence pass, before words are spoken again. 

"For the record, I still think you should be open to the endless possibilities love has to offer.” Clarke breaks the quiet bubble and is surprised to hear Lexa chuckle again. 

"Look who's the romantic now.” The brunette remarks, while their coffee cups are refilled again and the empanada plate is cleared from the table. 

"If anything, being loved by you, taught me to never stop giving and expecting the love the people around us, in our lives can give.” Clarke goes on, more hopeful than she feels in the moment. 

‘Lexa needs to hear these words. Right now she needs this.’ Clarke thinks while she sips the warm liquid from her cup, letting it warm her insides, comfortably. 

"You sound like a self help book for widows and the shattered hearted.” Lexa snarks playfully while she adds too much sugar to her fresh coffee. 

"They say time is the best healer, from things like these. Personally, I think love is too. I hate to see you deny yourself the happiness you so very much deserve in this life and all the ones that come after because of fear of the unknown.” Clarke says, watching as Lexa stirs a spoon in her cup. 

"You should take your own advice.” Lexa looks up with a warm expression. 

Clarke smiles weakly at the words, knowing the girl is right. 

"I'm trying.” She whispers before putting the words she wants to say next in an order that makes sense. 

"Despite, how situations panned out. How devastated I was you and I ended, I'm grateful you got to find someone else to love again. All I ever wanted was for you to be loved the way you loved me.” Clarke says, as Lexa stares at her, not once looking away. 

“Yeah?” Lexa asks, sounding touched. 

"Well, not right after. You were still mine. You and I were supposed to be forever. I didn't want anyone else to have you for the first two, three years. It was hard letting you go. Letting pieces of you escape my heart so someone else could enjoy them the way I did. It was extremely exasperating and grueling giving you up. I wasn't who you needed then. You and I weren't ready for each other. It took some time for me to come to terms with that. So slowly, I let pieces of you go and eventually I was okay with it.” Clarke finishes, grabbing Lexa’s hand and gently squeezing it. 

Lexa lets her and squeezes back. Not as long as Clarke does, but just enough. 

"You should know, I wanted the same for you. After a while. I wanted you to love and be loved in return, again too.” Lexa finally says, once the two had released each other’s hand. 

Clarke looks at the girl and for the first time since they’ve been around one another after years, Clarke sees the small, smug, smile she fell in love with all those years ago. 

It’s small. It’s quick. And she barely catches it, but it was there. 

Everything is still pretty much the same as it was the moment they walked into the small Spanish corner store with the best coffee. 

Everything hurts and burn the same way it did before. 

Maybe one day, things will get easier. Life and opinions on love. Maybe one, day it’ll get easier. 

Not today, but maybe another. 

‘It’ll get easier.’ Clarke thinks. ‘Not today, but eventually. It’ll get easier.’ 


	2. Kind of Wonderful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really know where I'm going with this. Prompt me with ideas of what you want to see with this. I'll only continue this story if you want me to. If not, we can end it at the third chapter. 
> 
> Happy Reading.

 

Chapter Two

It was two months after their talk at the Spanish corner store. Both Clarke and Lexa had fallen back into the friendship they shared before they had began dating each other all those years ago. Probably not the same kind of friendship. Something was different. Things were darker. The two girls ten years older than from when they first met. Physically and mentally. But after many years spent away from one another, they were friends again and it was different, but comforting and right. 

The two were at a quiet, hidden park behind Lexa’s childhood neighborhood, surrounded by large trees older than their parents. The weather was decent with a slight breeze and a cloud or two. It would have been a perfect day for a picnic or casual stroll, but instead Clarke and Lexa settled for laying on an old blanket Clarke kept in the trunk of her car. Both looking up at the light blue sky as if they were searching for all the answers they couldn’t find on Earth. 

“Can I ask you something?” Clarke turns over on her side to face the other woman staring up at the sky. 

“I’m certain you’re going to, regardless of my answer.”

Lexa’s eyes didn’t move from the cloud they were focused on, but the way her jaw moved slightly, Clarke knew she was thinking. 

“The grief?”

“The grief?” Lexa repeats Clarke’s words slowly before turning over so she was facing the other woman. 

Clarke nods as she fiddles with a loose thread on the blanket, pulling it into a long string.

"I'm not sure if all grief is the same. I'm sure it's similar, but I don’t know. It still feels fresh. New.” Lexa mumbled, watching the blonde mess with the thread, eyes squinting from how the sun had decided to shine directly on them. 

“Yeah. Makes sense.” Clarke sighed, forgetting about the thread and laying back down, arms behind her head. 

The two laid in silence for ten minutes, Clarke still wondering about the tight feeling she got in her throat every time she thought about her mother. 

“I never got a chance to tell you sorry. About Abby, I should’ve been there. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It was a funeral. Nothing exciting about those.”

“Tell me about it.” Lexa nearly whispered, knowing all too well how funerals went. 

“I miss her. I didn’t think I’d miss her this much. I’ve been thinking about how long it will last, missing her. I hate it."

Lexa nodded in agreement. She herself wondered how long the sadness would last. She wondered if it would ever end. If she would ever feel anything aside from the constant ache in her heart. 

"When I lost her, it was the worst thing I had ever experienced. Even today, right now, when I think about it, it still is.”

Clarke continued looking up at the sky, but grabbed Lexa’s hand, intertwining their fingers together. It wasn’t a romantic gesture. It was just a ‘them’ gesture they’d come accustomed to again. 

"I wish I could tell you the pain goes away, but it doesn't. Over time it becomes bearable, maybe it'll even lessen, but it's still there. It always will be. It won't go away, because something that big, that significant doesn't just disappear. You don't just lose the feeling of what they were to you. If anything it just gets more intense before it calms down. 

So, it's going to be awhile till your okay. You're going to change, you're going to do things differently than before, you're going to be a devastated mess, you're going to be in a low place. You’ll get better. At hiding it. At trying not to feel it.”

“Sucky way to live.” Clarke finally spoke after a moment of silence. 

Lexa chuckled and as a result so did Clarke. 

“I’m just repeating what the three grief counselors moaned on about. Honestly, some days it feels horrible. Like it’s never ever going to get better.”

“You went to see a counselor?” 

“I was forced. I didn’t go willingly.”

“You never said anything. I would have gone with you. Moral support.”

“Not something I was proud of having to go to. Plus, both of us didn’t need to suffer.”

“I’m sorry. Nevertheless. I know it must’ve been tough for you. Talking to a stranger about it all.” Clarke said, knowing how difficult it must have been for the other girl to have to attempt to talk to a random person about all that happened. 

“Yeah. I had to put my foot down after the third guy. He didn’t think my jokes about death were funny.” Lexa chuckled again, tightening her grip on Clarke’s hand slightly.

“You tell him the ‘my wife’s an angel..’ one?” Clarke asked, grinning slightly, remembering when Lexa told her the joke. 

The blonde had been so caught of guard by it, she tripped on the sidewalk as they walked around downtown, on the way to another lunch with each other. 

“Yep, didn’t crack.”

“Mm, what a shame."

“We talk about death a lot, huh?” Lexa mumbled, casually. 

“Temporarily. Maybe eventually we’ll move on to less extreme topics. Like politics and religion.” Clarke joked, watching as Lexa almost grinned. 

“What’s your perfect death?” Clarke asked randomly, not realizing or caring much, how odd the question was.

Lexa sat up, letting go of Clarke’s hand, and crisscrossed her legs.

"Perfect death...hm, well that's easy.” The brunette simply said, plucking a piece of grass from besides the blanket and throwing it at Clarke. 

Clarke smiled and sat up as well. 

“Easy? Of course, the love atheist has this one thought of..” The blonde exaggerated a sigh and rolled her eyes. 

“Mmhm. I have two. First one, I would be in the desert. Sand everywhere. It's hot, but there's a breeze. The sun is beaming. I'm in a pit. A sand pit. I'm on my back. I've been stabbed with a sword after a glorious battle. I'm in pain, but I can feel it lessening. There's no one for miles and miles. Just me. I'm bleeding out. I'm not thinking about anything. I'm not thinking about finding help or how I'm dying. I'm just laying there in a puddle of my own blood. I close my eyes. I feel like nothing. I can hear the wind. Then nothing. I'm dead. Perfect death.” Lexa looked as if she was imagining it that very moment, deep in thought, picturing every detail, and if Clarke didn’t know her as well as she did, she would have been worried. 

Instead, the blonde shook her head and laughed. 

"Wow. Okay, that was dark. Not as gruesome as I imagined. Still dark." 

"I happen to think of my death often. This way I like the most.”

Clarke couldn’t help but scowl, causing Lexa to laugh, surprising the blonde. She hadn’t heard Lexa laugh in such a long time. Especially, in the last few months. 

"Why in the hell do you think of your death so much?” Clarke finally asked after a moment. 

Lexa didn’t answer right away. Instead, she looked around the quiet park as if she was carefully constructing the words she wanted to say next. 

"I don't know. I guess there's something beautiful and glorious about it to me. Even before she died. I mean in hindsight, it seems horrid, but I've never really cared much about it. You die, you die. Trust me I'm not actively looking for ways to die. I quiet enjoy being alive or I used to. Now I tolerate it, life. But if it happens, it happens. I die, I die.” Lexa huffed, almost frustrated, like she was having trouble conveying her thoughts.

Clarke watched Lexa sigh and run her hand through her thick, tangled locks of brown hair. 

"You really have me second guessing leaving you alone.” Clarke joked while Lexa playfully nudged her. 

"I'm just not afraid of death. What's so bad about that?" 

“What about everyone else? What about your family, friends, the people who love you? Don’t you think they’re afraid of you dying?” Clarke asked calmly, trying not to sound judgmental or angry. 

"I have other siblings. Auden and Aden. My parents will get by fine. Friends? I think I'm pretty replaceable. I mean, there's like seven billion people on earth. My death isn't that traumatic when you look at it." 

Clarke wanted to yell at Lexa. She wanted to grab and shake her until she saw clearly what her words meant, how wrong they were. She wasn’t replaceable, her death would be devastating. Traumatic. Catastrophic. In Clarke’s eyes, Lexa’s death would be something the world would never be ready for, her world would never be ready for. 

“Is there some dark traumatic childhood memory I don’t know about? I thought I knew em all..." 

"Nope. I was raised well. I guess losing my wife just did a real number on me." 

“Maybe we should get you back to a therapist. Get you on the happy pills." 

“Look, we don't need to worry about it. It's really not such a big deal.” Lexa threw herself back down on the blanket, clearly wanting the conversation to end now. 

Clarke, as usual, didn’t want to let it go, this wasn’t something you just let slip under the rug. 

"But it is a big deal. You think when you die no one will care. Trust me your parents will care. Auden and Aden will care. Your friends, our friends, people, me, everyone, will be upset. I will be upset if you died and left me here all alone.” Clarke scooted closer to the other woman, her voice louder than she had intended. 

Lexa gave Clarke a sympathetic look and exhaled a breath Clarke didn’t know she had been holding. The brunette pulled Clarke down into hug and kept her there for a while. Clarke couldn’t help, but relax into it. It wasn’t the first time the two had hugged since being reacquainted and Clarke was surprised it was Lexa who usually initiated them. However, she never minded and enjoyed being wrapped in the familiar embrace. 

"You seem more concerned about my hypothetical death than I am.” Lexa whispered, breaking the long silence that took place. 

"If you're not, someone should be.” Clarke replied, burying herself in the crook of Lexa’s neck.  

"Well. Thank you. I promise, when I'm on the brink of death, I will try to get off of it. For your sake. Is that good?" 

"For now, Yes. I'll take it. But just for the record. You're not replaceable to me. I'd miss you." 

“If we are on the record. Than I suppose, I'd miss you too. A lot. I don't think anyone else would care much to talk about 'the perfect death' with me.” Lexa chuckled, trying to pull Clarke closer to into her. 

"Lucky you then.” Clarke joked, playing with a strand of Lexa’s hair. 

"Lucky me.” 

“You mentioned two perfect deaths…what was the second?” Clarke asked, even though she knew. 

Lexa didn’t day anything for a moment, her body didn’t stiffen and she didn’t attempt or bother to let go of Clarke’s arms. 

“With her. It would have been with her.” Lexa finally said.

Clarke didn’t move or say anything else. There was nothing else to day.

The two laid together for another hour. Discussing topics much different from death, before leaving the park and going to Clarke’s place to make dinner. They were going through one of the many recipes in a cook book Lexa’s mom had given her and so far it had been a disaster. Still, both had fun attempting to make cajun gumbo and coconut layered cake and enjoyed spending time with one another. 

They distracted each other from the pain that seemed like would never end or disappear. 

More importantly, they were getting to know one another again. Becoming the best friends they once were before life sent them in different directions. 

It was refreshing. 

It was new.

And despite everything. 

It was kind of wonderful. 


End file.
